Dan Fuss: Bond investors have learned from experience…not

In some ways, famed bond investor Dan Fuss is pleased by how far the bond market has come during the last year. October and November 2008 made for a “horrific experience” he said. Since then, bonds have made an incredible recovery. However, their rebound has also brought back some of the behavior that fed their […]

What does GIPS verification mean?

I’m an amateur when it comes to understanding investment performance standards. So I was surprised when a speaker at the CFA Institute’s GIPS (global investment performance standards) conference speaker said verification does NOT verify that firm’s composite numbers are correct or that firm is compliant. Huh? As I understand it, verification simply means the firm […]

A quant’s guide to detecting a future "Madoff"

Worried about getting taken in by an investment management Ponzi scheme? With the SEC ratcheting up its fraud detection efforts, it’s less likely that you’ll get scammed, based on what I heard at the CFA Institute’s GIPS conference last week. But the conference also introduced me to a quantitative method for detecting fraud in “The […]

Do you use “pride capitals”?

If you’re in business, you probably use capital letters more than grammar geeks recommend. I confess. I was guilty of overcapitalizing titles until Prof. Albert Craig, my Ph.D. thesis advisor, drummed the rules into me. I learned to write “Goto Fumio, home minister” instead of “Goto Fumio, Home Minister.” Titles should be capitalized only when […]

Top 5 tips for investment performance advertising

Knowing the rules for advertising your investment performance is your key to staying out of trouble with the regulators. Here are some of the tips I gathered from “Performance Advertising 101: Regulatory Do’s and Don’ts” presented on Sept. 23 at the CFA Institute’s GIPS conference by Rajan Chari of Deloitte & Touche, who focused on […]